Yesterday in Willow Class we had a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) afternoon.

We were please to have Dr Irene Wise in school to lead this.

Irene, chatted with the children about what STEM is and then put them into groups. She gave each group a coloured piece of cellophane to look through.  They all established that things appeared different.  They walked to the field and Irene read them a different version of Jack and the Beanstalk.

As a conclusion the children were tasked with making something in which a golden egg could be thrown from the top of the beanstalk to the bottom without damaging it!  First of all the children had 5 minutes to select materials and come up with a plan  This caused a scramble whilst they all went round picking up things they thought would be useful in their task.  Then they chatted through some of their ideas with Irene.  The next task was to make it.  We didn’t use real eggs the children had ‘stunt’ eggs (polystyrene to you and me).

The children worked in teams to try and make something to protect the egg.  Some thought about protecting it and some thought about how it was going to land. They asked lots of questions and some tried different things.

At the end Irene climbed on some steps and launched each of the models to test them.  We had some very surprising results indeed.  Some we thought would not float down, did and vice versa.  Some designs needed totally reworking but it all gave them lots to think about.  Lots and lots of problem solving.

What a great afternoon we all had.